111. Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen
Z ar
It’s dark. I’m disoriented. I don’t know where I am.
As I try to cast my mind back to the last thing I remember, I’m not sure why the thought at the top of my mind is that my left knee doesn’t hurt. It’s been a constant dull ache for over a decade. It’s a throb I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned to Anya. Just something I constantly live with.
And it’s gone.
I reach to rub where it usually hurts on the outside of the knee and realize I can feel neither my leg nor my arm.
Panic!
I want to thrash, to right myself, to get my bearings, but I can’t feel a thing.
Am I paralyzed?
I haven’t felt this level of terror since I was sixteen and they threw me into the arena with a gargantuan, seasoned Anthen warrior.
If Anya were here, I could handle this. I could handle anything. But I don’t hear her.
I can’t speak. I can’t see. I can’t move. Is this death? It’s anything but peaceful.
I’m terrified.
Rynn
I’ve never felt this good before. I don’t even have words to describe it. Peaceful, yes. Happy, yes. But it’s so much more than that. Could this be joy? Optimism? Exhilaration?
I never realized before, but I’ve been a machine, an automaton. A thing of flesh and blood that goes about his business like a robot. And an Arclite of all things! We’re born to be such free spirits. I wanted a higher purpose, but at what price?
Was all the knowledge in the universe worth the loss of myself? I’ve walked through life without emotion.
The cost of my loss became crystal clear last night. The sacrifice was not only my happiness, but my ability to bond. My ability to love.
I love Anya. It’s clear now. Even a fool should have understood that weeks ago. I guess that makes me worse than a fool. But I understand it now.
I take a shower while I search through thousands of pages in my database. How to woo a female, how to court a female, how to tell a female you care about her.
I soak up the information, storing it in my frontal lobes. I know I have a head start because I’m wearing the body of Anya’s mate. But I won’t let myself get complacent. If anything, I’ll redouble my efforts to do right by her. After all she’s been through, she deserves it.
I towel dry and dress with care. Although I bring my loincloth to spar after breakfast, I wear one of the black leather kilts Anya likes so much. I may be new to this body, but I’ve read about human body language. Her eyes lit with pleasure when she saw me dressed like this yesterday on our trip to the drassah plantation.
I vow to make those lovely green eyes spark with arousal every time she looks at me. When this self-imposed three- lunar waiting period is over, I want her to agree to be mine in every way. And I want to be worthy of her affection. Every spare moment, I want to read more about what females want from their males. And I want to provide those things for her. All of them.
I hurry to the dining room, wanting to pour her a cup of drassah and add the perfect amount of cream. Perhaps if I’m early enough, I can deliver it to her in her room. She’d like that.
I can barely hide my disappointment when I see her already sitting at our table. Not that I don’t want to see her, I’d just set my heart on bringing her a cup of the hot beverage she hovered across half a planet to buy.
Not only did she beat me here, she has a steaming cup of drassah waiting in the empty seat across from her.
“For me?” I ask, unable to hide my smile when she nods. She did this for me. Is it too much to hope she carries some of the same affection for me that I feel for her? It would be the answer to my wishes.
She’s wearing a big smile, her eyes bright with happiness. When I reach to tug on my chin hair, I can’t help but notice I’m wearing the same grin.
“Did you sleep well?” I ask, my voice deeper than usual. I hope none of the interested bystanders have figured out what we did last night. That should be between us. A secret only two people share.
“Yes. Good sleep for the first time in weeks. And you?” No one eavesdropping would know how loaded her question is, unless they saw that at the last moment her eyebrow winged up in a decidedly naughty movement.
“Never better.” I give her my attempt at a sly wink. I’ve read about this. These private little conversations heavy on subtext. It’s what couples do. What lovers do. Is that what we’re becoming? Wouldn’t that be wonderful? We both deserve happiness, don’t we?
“I added cream for you this morning. You seemed to like it this way.”
“Delicious,” I say after a quick sip. I hope she gets the thousand extra layers of meaning. Wouldn’t it be amazing if in a few lunars I get to taste another delicious delicacy? I can’t wait to taste Anya. If I had millions of credits, I would bet them all that Anya would taste better than anything else in the galaxy.
Our breakfast conversation differs from anything we’ve ever shared before. Every sentence is fraught with double and triple meanings. All of them dirty. No. Dirty isn’t the correct word. Nothing between two people who care about each other can be dirty. I’ll call it sensual from now on.
After breakfast, Anya seems happy to walk with me to the ludus for my morning sparring session. I’m clumsier than usual as I grapple with Stryker. He’s one of the most competitive people I’ve ever met. Usually, he pushes me hard and gives me pointers as I go, teaching me something every time we meet. Today, I can’t pay attention to anything other than Anya’s attentive expression.
“I think you need a nap,” she says after I return the mats to their place. “See you tonight at dinner.”
Although I didn’t do well during my session with Stryker, my body feels good. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I feel as if my physical form matches the thoughts and feelings in my head. I believe I was born to be competent and powerful. All of my Boklorn bodies were top-heavy with spindly necks and wobbly heads.
In the shower, for the first time in my life, I don’t repress my sensual yearnings. My cock grows thick and heavy and I feel no shame when I grip it and rhythmically tug. I explored last night, but now I discover other techniques to bring myself pleasure. If I’m to give Anya bliss soon, I’ll need to learn how to delay my gratification. I’ll work on that tomorrow. Right now, I dive into the physical pleasure I’ve denied myself for far too long.
After my release, I barely take the time to towel off, then sag into bed. I imagine Anya naked and sprawled before me like the galaxy’s most delicious buffet. When my cock gets hard again, I’ll see how long I can tease myself before I allow myself to experience pleasure.
I didn’t get much sleep last night. I was too busy playing and replaying our fonesex. I’m right on the cusp of sleep when I feel something stirring inside me. I don’t have words to describe what is happening. It’s like movement. No, that’s not right. It’s just a strange awareness.
I visit the stacks of the database I’ve set up. Rooms and rooms, stacks and stacks, folders, and sub-folders—nothing is out of place. Everything is as it should be.
I use my comm to text Anya. I’m trying to take a nap, but my thoughts are consumed with you. Anya, I hope you know how important you are to me. What’s happening between us is the best thing in my lifetime. You are the most wonderful person I’ve ever met.
It’s only after I push send that I’m seized with second thoughts. Was that too weak? The articles say to be strong and masculine. A few suggested never letting a female know how important they are to you, that you’ll lose your power over them. I don’t want to have power over Anya. I want us to be equals. Loving equals. Has my text ruined everything? My hands turn clammy in fear as I wonder if that message ruined everything.
You put a big smile on my face, Rynn. What’s happening between us is in its infancy, but its promise is very sweet. And so are you.
I release the breath I’d been holding. In the future, I’ll need to remember to read the experts, but to trust my heart—and trust Anya to see beyond my social gaffs to know the very real, very loving emotions residing in my heart.
Receiving that message puts me at ease. All my worries sink away and I slide into that state between waking and sleep.
Something isn’t right! I can’t put a name on it, but there’s a disturbance deep inside me. Nothing is out of place as I investigate, looking through my hoard of three millennia’s worth of information.
I don’t know what pulls me toward the 57. I keep their information, their personalities, separate from the facts I curated. I felt it was a way to honor them for their service, their sacrifice.
As soon as I make my way down through the tunnels to where the remains of their lives are housed, I know I’m headed in the right direction. My heart almost seizes in my chest when I realize, without a doubt, exactly what I’m going to find.
I’ve insisted it was impossible, that it couldn’t be done, but before I see any proof, I know it’s true. Zar lives. How is this possible? He was not here when I did a deep search. Could it be the truemate bond? Anya’s unwavering love that kept the bond alive and pulled Zar back from the beyond? It is completely unprecedented, but the only explanation that makes sense to me.
Zar
It’s only recently I’ve begun to contemplate the existence of a higher power. I’ve mentioned the possibility sometimes, especially when I officiated at matings. But I’m still not sure what I believe. If I don’t believe in a god, I certainly shouldn’t believe in a malevolent power. Whatever is happening to me, though, has to be the work of the devil. What else could explain my state?
I can’t move, can’t see, can’t hear, can’t feel. I can think, though, and that is pure torture.
I don’t know how long I’ve been in this condition, but it feels like an eternity. My thoughts are spinning, spinning, going nowhere. I’m a gladiator, a warrior at heart. I can’t tolerate what’s going on inside me—the fear, terror really, of the unknown.
If only Anya were here. If I could hold her hand, hear her voice, feel her love for me, it might make this torture tolerable. Her absence is the worst part of my condition.
Rynn
I pass numbers one through fifty-six, ensuring each and every one of them is dead, that no life survives behind the closed doors. Each lifetime of memories I pass, I know with certainty that all of them are dead, except for Zar.
Before I reach the room that houses Zar’s memories, I realize what is going on. If he is alive, he’s just a thought-form. He’s just a being with no physicality. He can’t see, hear, taste, or smell. He doesn’t even know I’m here. I could just walk away.
I imagine how he’s feeling: his terror, horror, panic. I could just return my attention to my life, go to sleep, and allow the tiny filaments of his being to dangle in nothingness until they finally wither and withdraw until he perishes.
As I stand outside 57’s door—I don’t want to even think of him as Zar—I imagine the life I could have if he were truly dead. I watch in my mind’s eye as Anya and I grow closer every day. I picture myself doing all the things I’ve been researching, performing a myriad activities designed to show her how much I care.
It wouldn’t take long for her to let down more of her barriers, to allow her grief to fade. One day she would look at me, perhaps over a cup of drassah I prepared for her with care, and give me that look. The look I’ve envied since the first time I observed it in Zar’s memory banks. The look of love so real, so deep, so beautiful it shines with otherworldly emotion.
One day, all of the love I know she’s capable of would be focused on only one person—me. Rynn. Zar would finally be buried. Just a memory.
I imagine our days passing in bliss as we share our hearts and souls and dreams. We’d share not only our physical passion, but our entire beings. I’d find a way to provide for her, to make her life even better than it is.
I watch all those hopes and aspirations and lovely imaginings spin out and spool onto the ground. That lovely life I just imagined in detail? The life I want so badly I can taste it? The relationship I truly believe I could have if I just walk away and allow Zar’s spirit to die a long, agonizing, and lonely death? No, I can’t do such a thing.
I’m a good male. I gave up a life as a free-spirited Arclite to better the future of everyone in the galaxy. It’s who I am.
I take a deep breath and watch my future—one of many possible futures—fade into blackness. What I want more than anything in the world? To be with Anya, receive her love, have her look at me the way she once looked at Zar?
If I walk away now, that future would be a lie. I wouldn’t be able to look at the love in her eyes knowing I deprived her of her greatest wish—to have Zar back. If I walk away now, I will be killing him. A second time. Only this time it would be with my full awareness and consent. I fold up those hopes and dreams and shove them into the dark recesses of my mind.
With Zar alive, I’ll never achieve this dream. But bringing Zar back to the living is the right thing to do. It is within my power to do this for Anya. There is no longer any question or debate. My love for Anya outweighs my own desires.
I reach an epiphany. The true understanding of the meaning of love. To make her happy even at my own expense.
I open the door to his memories, but it’s quiet and still in here. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I don’t have to surrender my dream of a happy, fulfilled future with Anya. But then I see it. A sparkle of light no larger than one of Anya’s teardrops. Zar’s essence.
Although I’ve never encountered anything like this before, I somehow know what I must do. I walk to the spark. It’s so dim, I’m certain it’s close to naturally guttering out, like a candle that runs out of flame.
A quiet voice in the back of my head encourages me to walk away, but I step forward, take a deep breath, and touch the little spark even as I know what I’m doing will change my life’s path forever.
Zar
I… feel something. For the first time in perhaps aeons of endless nothingness, I feel… a presence.
It’s as if I’m being cupped by a benevolent entity. Am I in the hands of God? I feel emotions coming from somewhere. They’re not my own. Mine are filled with terror and loss. What I’m receiving is compassion.
If I had a physical body, I would weep from sheer relief. To connect with something, even something malevolent, would be a respite from the endless solitude. But to feel nurtured—rescued—is the sweetest thing I’ve ever experienced.
It’s as if some of my senses are coming back online. I feel movement, then I hear.
Amidst the echoing footsteps, I hear a male’s voice. It’s tender, compassionate. You’re alive. I will tend to you. I’ll help you recover. You have… a lot to look forward to.
I don’t know where I am or who this male is, but gratitude fills my heart. I may not know what happened to me or what type of hell I’ve lived in for who knows how long, but I know I’m being rescued.
He promises I have something to look forward to. That’s impossible. I believe I’m dead, and the only thing I could possibly look forward to is being reunited with my beloved, my Anya. I don’t want to see her here in the afterlife. I want her to live.
I’ve never done this before, my rescuer admits. I don’t know how to give you form.
Ahh. Yes, I was correct when I believed I was formless. Is he suggesting I can have a form?
Although I don’t know what I am, or what I now look like, I focus all my attention on my previous form. I spent most of my life not knowing exactly what I looked like. Gladiators weren’t given mirrors. We weren’t valued for our looks. We were valued for our muscles. But since I fought for our freedom, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to look in the mirror.
I picture myself down to the minutiae of the little dots I have on my face where my whiskers emerge. Anya used to count them aloud, always with a lazy smile on her face. It was usually in the quiet glow after we’d made love.
I could think of her endlessly, but I need to focus on my body. If I can be more than this formless being who can only hear and feel vague movements, perhaps I could make more sense of my life.
I picture my deep brown mane, my golden eyes, and my rounded ears. I imagine holding my arms out and watch my claws extend from my fingertips. Thinking of my Anya, I imagine a purr rumbling from the center of my chest.
I can see you, my guardian says. Open your eyes.
That I have eyes and can open them overwhelms me with emotion. I’ve been through so much sadness and trauma in my life, I thought I was strong enough to weather the darkest days. Nothing, nothing prepared me for the sheer isolation of being formless and alone with my thoughts for that long passage of time.
I open my eyes and immediately search for my savior.
Human. Perhaps I should have known. I’ve never seen a human male before, but I imagine this is a perfect one. His skin is the same tanned color as Anya’s. His brown hair is wavy and hits his shoulders. His face is as beautiful as any male’s face has a right to be.
I’m captured by the emotions I see there. There is a sadness so deep and poignant it almost makes me forget my own pain.
Welcome, he says as he attempts to pull his features into a smile. Have a seat.
As I look around, I’m still not certain whether I’m in heaven or hell. It’s fantastical, almost as if we’re inside the center of a gigantic carved-out tree.
Closing my eyes, I breathe in the scent of a deep forest. It’s slightly humid and smells fertile. The furniture is made from logs and bark. Everything is roughhewn and, when I sit down, it’s as if the chair forms to comfortably fit my body.
I nod. Understanding that wherever I am, this place is magic.
He sits at the table across from me and inspects me. His expression is an odd combination of surprise, affection, and… fear.
He strokes his chin the way I’ve seen males do when they first grow a beard.
Was your time peaceful? he asks.
The eons I spent in a formless, silent, void? No. It was millennia of endless terror, I admit.
I’m sorry to hear that. He scrubs his chin again. Might I suggest you take a moment to enjoy your newfound freedom while I pour us a cup of drassah?
A copper drassah pot and two matching cups magically appear on the table and I watch, mystified, as he pours us cups of the steaming brew. Then I breathe deeply and force my shoulders to relax.
Whatever’s coming next couldn’t be as bad as what I just endured. He’s right, I should enjoy being set free and living in this body. I burrow into it as if I’d been separated from it for a while. I guess I was.
Looking around, I marvel at the colors I see, the smells I’m breathing in, and, as I take a sip of the hot beverage, I roll the taste around on a tongue I thought I’d never get back. Yes. I’ll take a moment to enjoy this.
I imagine you’d like an explanation, he says. If he were a female, he’d be considered beautiful. As a male, I can only think of him as otherworldly.
I nod.
Before I begin, might I remind you I just saved your life?
Yes. I was dying—a long, slow, agonizing death—and he carried me to this magical tree.
I should have already thanked you, I admit. I apologize. I’m still getting my bearings.
Let me explain.
Instead of telling me, he turns the round wooden table into a viewing screen and shows me the avalanche, the gray body with the spindly neck I tried to resuscitate, my body collapsing, and the wild hover ride to the Fool.
I’m emotionless as I watch. It’s as if the drama is happening to someone else. I experience no pain. It’s as if I’m watching a vid—except for the agony of my mate, my beloved, my Anya. Her pain becomes my pain, except within me it increases tenfold. I wish I could take her misery. I’d gladly bear it for her.
Watching, I’m confused as my body lies in the Fool’s medbay and speaks words that initially make no sense to me. It’s telling of hosts and symbionts. I understand clearly, though, when my lips state, “Zar is dead.”
My mind shuts down for a while. It simply stops processing. When the vid stops, I ask my host to play it again.
Finally, after I observe the second complete viewing of the information, everything slots into place.
You’re Rynn, I say, my voice flat, emotionless.
Zar-Rynn, he corrects.
I say nothing. I just allow my eyelids to close as I watch the entire vid inside my head a third time, still gleaning new understanding upon each retelling.
If this body were real, if it were flesh and blood, my stomach would empty, splattering the walls of this cozy tree-dwelling. But my body isn’t real. Nor is this tree. Nothing is real. Nothing but the pictures playing in my mind and the fact that I don’t own my body anymore.
I’ve been motionless for too long. The vid made it hard to understand exactly how much time has passed, but it was interminable.
I stand so quickly, the heavy, carved-out stump I’ve been sitting on falls backward. Reaching across the table, I grab Rynn by his shirt. When it rips, I grab him by the neck and pull him so close our lips almost touch.
You killed me, I accuse so angrily spit flies out of my snarled lips. That it’s imaginary spit makes no difference to me.
I’m choking him with one hand, my palm crushing his windpipe. As a trained gladiator, even without a weapon, I could kill this male in a hundred different ways. This, though, slowly crushing the life out of him one breath at a time, feels righteous, just.
I watch as the light goes out of his eyes. I let up a bit so it can happen even more slowly. When he’s finally dead, unable to gasp one last breath, I release my grip and watch his body flop onto the table.
If I were a nicer male, I’d say that gave me no satisfaction. But it did. It pleased me immensely.
Rynn’s lids pop open. He sits in his chair as if nothing just happened, and he has the audacity to ask if that felt good.
Terrific.
Do it again, he says, leaning forward and tipping his chin to give me better access to his exposed throat.
I shouldn’t. Obviously, it was a fool’s errand to try to kill a formless being. But I take him up on his offer.
There’s an axe leaning against the wooden wall. I fleetingly wonder if it was there moments ago or if my host was generous enough to provide this for me, knowing my intent is to kill him. I don’t ponder the question long, though. I stalk to the weapon, grab it, and am about to swing when I think better of it.
I don’t want to kill him from behind. I want to heft the axe from in front, so I can see the light go out of his eyes again.
I do just this, my chest bursting with joy the moment I separate his head from his neck. When I hear the wet thud of his head hitting the dirt floor, I experience another thrilling flare of excitement.
It’s only mildly irritating when the head eventually drifts to the body, rolls upward and onto the neck, and reattaches itself.
I kill him five more times. Each less satisfying than the last. By the final time, I have to give the male credit for humoring me.
Now we’re seated in our chairs as if the mayhem never happened. I pour him some drassah as I sort things through.
Now what? I ask, unable to think past this very moment. I’m still not certain what’s real and what isn’t.
There’s one more thing I’d like you to watch, he says.
His face was impassive during the seven times he was murdered, but as he asks me to watch something else, he can’t hide the fear flashing across his face.
I want you to watch two things, actually, he amends.
As he begins the new vid, he says, Feel free to kill me again. As many times as you wish.
The agony and terror I felt as I dangled on the precipice of death for what felt like eons was like a drop in the ocean compared to the pain I feel as I watch this.
It’s my body and Anya. Rynn shows me every interaction I shared with her. No. Every interaction he shared with her while I was in my formless state. I watch her hatred for him, and then her growing tolerance.
I know my beautiful mate well. She was trying to call me out, to bring me back from the dead. I don’t begrudge her the kiss in the observatory, and I silently cheer when she calls my name afterward.
It’s with horror, though, that I watch their budding friendship. I have equal parts hate and admiration as I watch him treat her with all the care and compassion I would have wished for had I been truly dead.
If I had died, I would have wanted Anya to move on, to find love. Eventually. Not so quickly. But I would have wanted her to be courted and loved and eventually mated to a good, caring, noble male. Like the male sitting across from me.
I watch the vid again, saddened, as I see the glow in her eyes. The look that was reserved only for me is shared with Rynn. I feel gut-punched when I watch the look in his eyes soften to match Anya’s.
My gaze lifts from the vid to the male I share this room with. He loves her. The dracker loves my Anya. If I wasn’t heartsick, I’d kill him a few more times, but it doesn’t sound cathartic. It sounds like a waste of time.
I wish you were dead. I say levelly, not even ashamed of my primitive feelings. If I could figure out a way to kill you for real, I would. There’s no bite, no threat behind my words. I know any attempt would be futile.
I said I wanted you to watch two things, he says.
So be it. What new level of hell is this? If you shared a bed with her, I swear by all that’s holy I will find a way to end you, even if it ends us both. I picture what I just described—my body, making love to my mate with me nowhere to be found. My hands clench as my teeth grind together so hard I’d fear I would break a tooth except I have no teeth, I have no body, I’m just formless thoughts.
I know the vid is playing on the table, and finally force myself to gaze upon it.
I watch as Rynn wakes from a drowse, his attention caught by something. He’s searching for something in what I now understand is millennia’s worth of information he’s amassed. He hurries past dozens of doors which I eventually realize are the repositories of memories of his previous hosts.
He stops, and the vid somehow closes in on his face. The agony I felt in my formless state might be likened to a vacation compared to the look of sheer misery in his expression.
My mouth drops open in wonder as I watch him wrestle with himself, then see him open the door. Intuitively, I know this is where I lingered all those days and weeks. I see the tiny spark of light that must have been my consciousness.
I watch him as he considers what to do. It’s clear as day he’s considering walking back out of the room, letting me expire. I watch the sweetness of his visage and know he’s imagining a life with the female he’s grown to love. His eyes tighten and his nostrils flare as he plays out the possibility of letting me die.
Then I see his jaw firm as his hand reaches out to save me.